Chapter 20: The Curse We Carry

Chapter 20: The Curse We Carry

1

The town of Harrow was gone.

No wreckage. No ruins. No sign that anything had ever been there at all.

Amy and I stood on the cracked asphalt at the town's edge, breathing hard, our bodies aching from the escape. My lungs burned. My mind raced.

We had made it.

But I knew—**deep in my gut—that we hadn't really won.**

Amy hugged herself. "Jack… what do we do now?"

I looked out at the long, empty stretch of road ahead.

"…We keep moving."

2

We walked for what felt like **hours**, the road stretching endlessly beneath our aching feet. The night air was cold, but something **hot and electric** lingered in the space around us—an **unseen presence** that refused to fade.

Amy stayed close, glancing over her shoulder every few minutes. "Does it feel like something's… following us?"

It did.

Even though the town had disappeared, even though the Watcher was gone, we both **felt it**—a presence just beyond the veil of the world we knew.

A **watchful eye that had never left us.**

3

We reached the outskirts of civilization—a lonely **gas station** standing at the edge of the highway, its neon sign buzzing faintly.

It looked **normal**. Too normal.

Like something **pretending** to be normal.

Amy hesitated. "Do we go inside?"

I nodded, though my chest was tight with unease. "We need to see if… if anything feels different."

If we still **belonged** in the world we had left behind.

4

The bell above the door jingled as we stepped inside.

The clerk—a **bored-looking man in his fifties**—barely glanced at us from behind the counter. The store smelled like **stale coffee and gasoline**, the fluorescent lights flickering above.

It felt… **real**.

But then Amy whispered, "Jack."

I turned—just in time to see **our reflections in the cooler glass.**

Only—

They weren't **ours.**

Our movements didn't match. Our mouths hung slightly open, as if our reflections were **breathing without us.**

A deep, slow exhale—

From something **watching through our own faces.**

I grabbed Amy's hand. "We need to go."

She didn't argue.

5

Outside, the night was even **thicker** than before. The stars above looked too sharp, too bright, like they were watching.

Amy gripped my arm. "Jack… I don't think we're free."

I swallowed hard.

Neither did I.

We had left Harrow, but **we weren't truly free of it**. We weren't bound to whatever we had unleashed—**but we weren't untouched, either.**

We had carried **something** out with us.

A mark. A stain. A **curse.**

Amy shuddered. "We need to fix this."

"We will," I said.

But we both knew the truth.

The only way to break the curse—the only way to be truly free—

**Was to go back.**

To face what we had let out.

To end it.

But not yet.

Not tonight.

Tonight, we kept moving, carrying a **shadow that would never leave us.**

And somewhere in the darkness, something **watched and waited.**

---

End of 'The Watcher in the Cornfield'

Jack and Amy **escaped**, but they are not truly free. The **curse remains**, lingering in their shadows, woven into their reflections.

The **only way out** is to face what they unleashed.

But that is a story for another time.

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